All Student Vote (Spring 2020)

Fighting Stigmas Together

This motion mandates some of the sabbatical officers to run a campaign to promote positive mental health

This Union Notes:

This section should include any facts, figures or statements that you believe are relevant to the topic of your policy. Remember in this section clear and effective referencing is important.

• As of July 2017 suicides of University students in England and Wales were at a rate of 4.7 deaths per 100,000 students.[1]
• Wider studies show that people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, those from minority ethnic backgrounds and those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or of other minority sexualities and sexual identities (LGBT+) are more likely to experience mental ill health.[2][3]
• Male higher education students in the UK have a significantly higher rate of suicide compared to female students.^[4]
• 12.5% of men in the UK are suffering from one of the common mental health disorders.^[5]
• In the UK, over three quarters of people who die by suicide are men.²
• Despite this, suicide is also an issue for women. Although the rate is higher for men, women attempt suicide at a similar rate.[6]

 This Union Believes:

This section should include opinions or supporting statements for your policy. 

• All students should feel able to access mental health support and services in an atmosphere that is non-judgemental, believes students and understands the specific complexities of mental health on their identities.
• That the University can do more to promote wellbeing services, especially to those who may feel uncomfortable approaching the services.
• The University should invest in ensuring that wellbeing services are equipped to accurately support student’s mental health issues dependant on their identities.
• That the current number of student suicides is alarming and the University should be making large leaps to address not just the wellbeing support, but also investing in researching the cause of a rising mental health crisis and addressing these issues.
• The Union should be taking the rising mental health crisis seriously, and should be running a campaign on the student mental health crisis that looks holistically at the causes of the issues and addresses that some students are more likely to suffer with mental health.

This Union Resolves:

This section should be about how you want the SU to react, the outcome of this policy. Remember to mandate specific departments/sabbatical officers; this will make things easier for future accountability

• That the Welfare and Campaigns Officer, Sports Officer and Societies Officer should run a campaign to promote positive mental health. 
• That the Welfare and Campaigns Officer, Sports Officer and Societies Officer should provide training for all new club and society exec members on the wellbeing support offered by the University.
• That the Welfare and Campaigns Officer and President should lobby the University to increase funding into mental health and wellbeing provision.
• That the Welfare and Campaigns Officer and President should lobby the University to improve the promotion of mental health and wellbeing services to those that are statistically more unlikely to access the services, and that these services should be culturally competent.